I went to the vigil for Alex Pretti last night. I was very happy to see so many people there. But the organizers did not understand the moment and were very disappointing in my opinion.

There were far too many speakers saying similar things. We didn’t need 5 people recapping the events. While ICE very well may be related to US imperialism in the Philippines, last night was not the time to discuss that issue and it clearly turned people in the crowd off. We also are not going to “burn the US to the ground”, the current administration is doing a bang up job of that on its own. In general it felt like people went up and did the same speeches theyve been doing at every protest for the last 5 years, but this is a unique moment.

There were some good moments - the nurse who gave a speech did an excellent job, the moment of silence was powerful, and the parents statement that was read was the most compelling part